Q5, 蔡宗桓

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Quize

 

 

1. There are there main story lines in this episode. The most significant one is that Chandler prepared to propose to Monica in the restaurant. However, at the restaurant, they accidently encountered Richard, Monica's ex-boyfriend. Therefore, the proposal was absolutely forced to interrupt. Because of meeting Richard, Monica found that she really needed a man that gave her marriage permission and she thought Chandler was a guy who hated marriage but Richard was active to ask Monica to marry him. Therefore, she decided to go for Richard again, but she did decide to leave afterwards. Chandler, who always gave his girlfriend an impression that he did not like marriage, then proposed again in Monica's house and this time everything was perfect, so they were now engaged and their friends were all happy about them.  Then another storyline is that Joe bought a boat in an auction, which he used to think that he could get the boat for free. Although he did not have enough money, he still decided to pay by time after time. And now everything he has talked was not leaving BOAT. The last one is that Ross broke up with Elizebath because he thought she was not enough immature. They two did have the gap that was hardly crossed.

 

2. Monica is the character I love most. I think Monica is the most mature lady in Friends. She is a cook and she really knows how to take care of his friends. I have seen her excellent cooking skills in many episode and I really appreciate that. Joey is the one that I don't like most. He is always flurting with other women and seemed kind of useless in making his own livings.

 

3. I have really leaned some oral communication  skills from friends. And I think watching Friends is really an interesting way to learn English. I will keep watching other seasons in my winner holidays.

！

RJ6, 蔡宗桓

English Reading Journal-6

Book Title: Phantom of the Opera

Author: Leroux (originated written in French)

Read version : teenage version (in English)

Publishing company: Penguin

Year of Publishing: 2001

Number of pages: 50

Student: Chung-Huan (Allen), Tsai

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I started reading this book because there was a movie version of the Phantom of the Opera, and also a musical of it at the Broadway. It sounded interesting and the setting of the French opera drew my attention to the story.

Leroux, in the story, had used first person tense in some parts of the story, as if he was there at the opera, trying to find out if the Opera Ghost really existed. Moreover, by weaving in the characters that actually existed in history into the story, Leroux made the story sound very realistic.. Another of Leroux's techniques used in this story is the pieces being performed on the opera theater's stage. For example, the singers performed Othello and Faust, hinting the start of the tragedy, and the love of the evil.

Most of the stories' climaxes are at the middle of the book; however, I think that the climax of The Phantom of the Opera is at the very end. Personally, I believe that Christine Daae loved the opera ghost, Erek, as much as she loved Raoul, the Vicomte de Chagny, although she may have considered it as sympathy. I think that is why she decided to flee with Raoul after her last performance instead of before it, to say her last goodbye to the Opera Ghost, even though it would put herself and Raoul in danger.

I really enjoyed the story because it is easier for me to read an easier version. I think I will try to read the real English version in winter and hope I can finish the whole book.

RJ5, 蔡宗桓

English Reading Journal-5

Book Title: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Author: roald dahl

Publishing company: Puffin Books

Year of Publishing: ?

Number of pages: 192

Student: Chung-Huan (Allen), Tsai

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    Charlie Bucket and his family are very poor. The only treat that Charlie receives is a single chocolate bar for his birthday each year. This year is special because Willy Wonka, the owner of the largest chocolate factory in the world, hid five golden tickets inside the chocolate bars. The five lucky children who find the tickets will be invited to be his guests at his factory for the day and receive enough chocolate to last a lifetime. With luck on his side, Charlie finds a golden ticket inside a bar of chocolate. The five lucky children encounter many adventures with Willy Wonka inside the chocolate factory. Willy Wonka has many tricks up his sleeve and a special surprise for the child that remains at the end of the day.
 
    I never really thought how cool it would be to enter a chocolate factory until I read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I thought it was just a couple of rotten, metal, rusty machines and some work men wearing hair nets. But when I read this book it was like a whole new world inside this factory with a bunch of cheerful little working men with bright green hair. The machines are really fascinating, in the book they are giant water falls with chocolate streaming out of them into a little lake of chocolate surrounded by candy trees and whip-cream mushrooms and big candy balls. This factory brought me into a whole different world of candy making.
 
    Because i have read the chinese edition in my childhood, so i can finish the book as fast as i can.  I did not spend too much time on  the whole story but only concentrate on a few chapters in the book. I love to read stories of a imaginary world, and the fiction is really suitable for my taste.
 

R J4, 蔡宗桓

English Reading Journal-4

Book Title: Flour babies

Author: Fine, Anne

Publishing company: Penguin Group

Year of Publishing: 1992

Number of pages: 41

Student: Chung-Huan (Allen), Tsai

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The boys in the class 4c were the worst students at school. They could not even write or read well. Once, they were asked by Dr. Felthams to do an assignment, and the subjects of the assignment were Food, Housework, Shopping, and Children. The boys must pick one of them and perform it. Finally, they picked "Children."

What's " Children"? The boys must take care of the flour babies. There were three kilograms of flour in each bag, and they were called "flour babies." The boys should look after their flour babies for three weeks and write about what have happened each day in a Baby Book. Most students gave up at last. But a boy called Simon Martin did well at this assignment. Actually, Simon's father left him when he was a child. He didn't understand why his father left him until he did this assignment.

Parents play the most important role in children's life. From young to old, parents always stand by us. They don't complain a bit even. I have a happy family, and I appreciate my parents much. But there are still many tragic families in the world. A lot of problems in our modern society are from families without love. Parents should be responsible for their children but children should also show respect and love their parents.

This is my first time to read English children's book. Although it's much easier to read and some pictures are in it, and I still think that reading is sometimes much fun when you enjoy it. I had a lot of fun in reading children's books. However, to challenge my reading ability, I will choose a more challenging book to enjoy at the next book.

reading journal 03 (蔡宗桓)

English Reading Journal-3

Book Title: Real Time- Stories and Reminiscence

Author: Chaudhuri, Amit

Publishing company: Picador

Year of Publishing: 2003

Number of pages: 183

Student: Chung-Huan (Allen), Tsai

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Among this week, I have focused on the forth story of the book, Beyond Translation. The narrator was an England immigrant from India. Each summer in his childhood, he went back to Calcutta, a Hindu city, to visit his uncle, aunt and cousins. However, the narrator did not know how to speak Bengali, the main language spoken in India, while his cousins did not understand English. because of language barrier, they seldom expressed their ideas or thoughts to others. Nevertheless, They usually went to Calcutta's bookshop together, and the narrator bought the book written in English and his cousins bought the books in Bengali. The narrator said his cousins and he never "encroached" each other's territory, which means they never tried to understand what other language books are about.

Even through in the same family, because of different background, the family still has the gap between each other. The narrator said he was "only" the visitor, and he did not know what his cousins thought. I think different stories they read represented different "world" they live in. That is, although the blood kept them together each summer, they had nothing other in common. And they never knew what other stories are about.

During this time of reading, I found that I have read faster than before. That's because I know more about India and have experience of how the writer expressed his ideas from previous chapters. However, because some midterms have not been done, I have no enough time to finish the book, which was planned. I think I can progress more after midterms since I will have more time.

I am glad I am almost finishing the first English novel in university. And I hope during this week I can have chances to continue the next novel. At the next novel, I will chose the book that are more suitable for my vocabulary level and I will also concentrate on the book of the whole long story instead of the book of components of several stories to challenge my reading skills.

HW2 (蔡宗桓)

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蔡宗桓 Chung-Huan (Allen), Tsai

Group: Pony

Learning is the continuous staff that begins since we were born. We learn in order to gain more ability to accommodate to the society and to have connection to every person in globe. Therefore, it's important to find better ways to achieve better learning, and the article, Introduction: Strategies for effective learning, provides several good methods that we can apply with in our learning.

Among these ways, some of them I have already used it in my everyday-learning process. For instance, I usually tackle unpleasant takes immediately. When preparing a plan of "to learn list", I usually put difficult staff as priorities. Burden will be smaller if the harder thing is done as sooner as possible. Therefore, I can have a better mood to deal with other staff if the harder work is done. In addition, I have chipping away big jobs. Because some projects are big and cannot deal with them within one specific time period, I usually break it in to fragments. I think it is really helpful for me. That is, I seldom drive mad when the work comes to the deadline while I usually finish them step by step and day by day.

And there are several ways that I have not done and willing to try in my future learning. One of them is I will try to listen actively. For now, when some topics do or donnot attract me, I usually just lay my back on the chair and "only listen." That usually depreciates what I have to learn. In other words, I cannot get the whole that the instructors want to express to. Therefore, I think I can learn more by being an active listener through taking notes. By doing so, I won't forget what the instructor has told and gains all views for the lecture.

However, there are some problems that I still have after reading this article. I am sometimes confused of how to keep a good journal. For example, sometime I might omit or misunderstand the important things that the instructor says. By reading the journal afterwards, sometimes I don't even know what I am writing about. I am curious about how to solve this problem.

Reading Journal 02, done by 蔡宗桓

English Reading Journal-2

Book Title: Real Time- Stories and Reminiscence

Author: Chaudhuri, Amit

Publishing company: Picador

Year of Publishing: 2003

Number of pages: 183

Student: Chung-Huan (Allen), Tsai

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During the week, I have been focus on the second story out of fifteen of the book, The Man from Kurda District. Kurta is a place where most people work as farmers and gained less salary compared to the people in the large city, like Calcutta. The main character of the story, Bishu, was originated from Kuta district and moved to Calcutta to find a better life after the path of his older brother, Medja, who worked as a helper of a cook. However, he still gained less income, sometimes even expenditure, at the job as a sweeper. In addition, he was not fluent in Bengali, which was mainly spoken in Calcutta, which let people show no respect to him. To conclude, we realized that problems faced from the people came from countryside to cities in India was that they are not respected and still cannot get themselves to a higher social-class level.

Even though most people might not get themselves better lives in large cities, but these who used to work in farmlands still eagerly came to these cities. In the story, the older brother, Medja, had taken the first step to the city and did not succeed well; however, Bishu still followed the step of his older brother. Even more, Medja and Bishu even tried to send their younger brother to the city. For me, whose parents is the first generation of the city immigrants, can find the clue out of my parents' experiences. My parents from Kinmen, a small island near to Fukin Province once recalled "it is our dream to come to Taipei to have a better life , and we hope to raise our children in a place full with more chances." And I continuously asked them whether we feared of the big difference of the city and the unknown of the future. They said they, of course, were afraid of not finding jobs and being discriminated by people born in Taipei, some reasons forced them to seek a different life cause they don't want to be farmers and City, this word, equals to Opportunity .

So I think maybe that's the reason why Bishu and all other countryside people want to move to cities. Opportunity is the answer！Although most of these people did not succeed in big cities in India, they all bring to cities by hope. Or maybe that's the human nature to hope to make a change of their used and dull life

At this time of reading, by the technique of using margin note, I can get more out of book. However, some words are really new to me cause I have no good foundation good Hindu culture, but I try not to use the dictionary and find context clues. And I do enjoy more in reading than at last time.

About language learning and acquisition

About language learning and acquisition

• 1.　Cobabulary skill is the essential key to understand an article or to write a satisfying essay. But how can we improve the rang of new words? What is the most sufficient way?
• 2.　I love to watch English-originated movies or tv series, but how can I improve my English when watching them?

蔡宗桓 49677007

Reading Journal 01, done by 蔡宗桓

English Reading Journal

Book Title: Real Time- Stories and Reminiscence

Author: Chaudhuri, Amit

Publishing company: Picador

Year of Publishing: 2003

Number of pages: 183

Student: Chung-Huan (Allen), Tsai

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The book is mainly focus on two parts, one of which is the collection of fifteen stories happening in the modern Indian subcontinent, while the other part showed the readers two retellings of Hindu mythologies. I have been interested in the mysterious land, India, for a long time. Therefore, in order to get a closer look and of India and to know more about people's lives in this land, I chose the book which is written by an Indian writer.

During the first of reading, I have concentrated on the first story of the book, Portrait of an Artist. The narrator, a sixteen-year-old boy, was a literature lover and loved writing poems. During a visit of his uncle in Calcutta, he met the tutor of his cousins, whom they called Mastermoshai. Mastermoshai, a fifty-year old man, was also a poet and wrote several articles for local publishing. He really appreciated the talent of the narrator and gave the young boy several opportunities by lecturing him with classic literature and introducing him to the publisher in Calcutta. Mastermoshai, a man living in tragedy of the death of his wife and son, seemed to have a new meaning of life after the appearing of the narrator. However, since a quarrel between these two and narrator's moving to England, they, who had been connected by the fantasy of literature, were separated. According to the later information got from narrator's mother, Mastermoshai died of poverty and loneliness.

I strongly felt the affection they gave to each other during the story and could sense the strong connection between these two main characters. They were brought together by the same enthusiasm of poems and literatures, even the sorrow and pain of the Mastermoshi was nearly been healed at that time. After the quarrel, I think, perhaps, they might want to make up after but the self-esteem stopped them from showing their real feelings.

In the story, I can also find the strong scent of the Indian culture. For instance, the book started with a Hindu festival, Durga Puja, when every house at that day in Calcutta was decorated with lights and everyone was full with joy, which I think that it is a strong contrast with the sad end of the story. The writer smartly puts Indian culture in the book and does not make reader think that it is just a line of a story but a complete image of the full story.

Although this is not the first time for me to read an English publishing, I find that a fiction, or a literature work, is much harder than materials I have read before. I used to believe that reading a novel might be easier than reading an English textbook; however, the truth is that novels get more deep meanings which should be carefully and repeatedly thought by reader. For me, reading a novel is a process of thinking and I really enjoy it. However, to make my next reading more comfortable, I should do some margin notes next to each paragraphs. I think doing the margin notes can allow me to get more out of the novel.

Student: Chung-Huan (Allen), Tsai

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